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Thank you for coming. -------------------------------------------------------------------In the Year of our LORD Jesus Christ 2017

--As of January 20, 2017

A Sigh Of Relief With The Inauguration Of Donald John Trump as President of the United States of America, And Hope For A Prosperous Future For All United States Citizens (we who are a nation called "the melting pot of the world"). We shall be great and exceptionally great again.

Water Security Conflicts: A Regional Perspective

by Nelson E. Hernández

Col Nelson E. Hernández is a Command pilot with more than 2,000 of
flying hours, who has served in the El Salvador Air Force for 30 years.
He graduated from the Salvadoran Military Academy in 1984, and has done
studies in the United States for Pilot Training, Squadron Officer
School, Air Command and Staff College and Air War College in Maxwell
AFB, Alabama. Col Hernández has commanded several units in the
Salvadoran Air Force from Squadron to Air Brigade level, and served as
Chief of the General Staff during 2010 and 2011. He served in Iraq as a
Chief Planner in the Multinational Force-Iraq staff in 2005, and is
currently working at USCENTCOM as the El Salvador Representative and
also as an Action Officer in the Combined Planning Group (CCJ5/CPG).

INTRODUCTION [Use of fictional scenario to open article concerns]

On the 1st of April 2014, the world was caught off guard when the
Syrian Air Force attacked the power plant facilities at Karkamis Dam in
the upstream of the Euphrates River 4.5 kilometers north of the
Turkey-Syrian border. Two people were reportedly killed and six more
injured.
After taking office as the new Syrian President in June 2013, Adib
Al-Atassi declared Turkey’s construction of the dam was depleting
downstream water from the Euphrates. He claimed Turkey was withdrawing
too much water from the river basin and preventing it from reaching
downstream Syria and Iraq.

According to Syrian officials, a dozen Russian Su-22 Fitter jets
launched more than 250 rockets at the power plant, aiming for trucks,
power lines, transformers, and main towers. Gen Hafez Al-Quwatli, Chief
of the Syrian Armed Forces, told the press that the dam itself was not
being targeted because of the obvious danger to the people living
downstream. “We are only targeting equipment and materiel for now; we
want to show Turkey that we are serious in defending our right to a
vital resource that should flow unrestricted and does not belong to any
country but to all humans.”
In response, twenty Turkish F-16C jets launched a similar strike on
Syria’s Tichrin and Tabqa dams, located on the Syrian side of the
Euphrates. Twelve people were reported killed and another twenty
injured.

The same day, Turkish troops clashed with Syrian border troops,
advancing and expanding the disputed Hatay Province some fifty miles to
the south into Syrian territory. Hatay Province, formerly known as
Alexandretta, a semi-autonomous part of French-mandated Syria, became
independent from France in 1937 and was annexed to Turkey in 1939. Syria
claims that Hatay was illegally ceded to Turkey by France and still
considers it an integral part of Syrian territory.
President Alib Al-Atassi took power after Bashar Al-Assad was forced to
resign by domestic and international (Russian and Iranian) pressure in
June 2013. Al-Atassi had been unable to bring stability to the country
and the Turkish government held the view that Al-Atassi was trying to
direct attention to the Hatay Province and water issues in order to
rally domestic support and turn away attention from its own internal
problems.

Pressured by uprisings in several main cities and by a severe drought
that had struck northern Syria, the government denounced Turkish water
flow reduction of the Euphrates. By extracting vast quantities of water
for irrigation purposes, Syria claimed the results were severe droughts
in its downstream northwestern provinces.

Several efforts were made to appease an unsatisfied, thirsty Syria but
the International Community had not been able to reach an agreement.
Diplomatic attempts were overrun by mutual accusations of border
violations and alleged support to terrorist groups.

Although the scenario portrayed above is fictional, the conditions
described are plausible if international leaders neglect this
water-related issue that, combined with other national security aspects,
can escalate to become an igniter for interstate armed conflict.

BACKGROUND

Water scarcity has received a lot of attention over the last three
decades. It has been predicted to be the source of future wars and many
experts have publicly warned about the dangers of water scarcity as the
main factor for armed conflict in the Middle East and Africa. Despite
the predictions by experts in this field, there is still no evidence
that water or even food scarcity has been the single or most important
cause for an interstate war.

It could be that the attention given to the issue at national,
regional, and global levels produced initiatives to reduce this
possibility. Another reason may be that the high costs of war in human
lives and resources has made it less attractive while regional and
bilateral cooperation proved more effective and less costly in
addressing the issue.

Whatever the reasons behind water scarcity’s relatively low correlation
with armed conflict, the combination of a water-related dispute with
other conditions may fuel radicalization of national security objectives
or interstate armed conflict. Furthermore, a U.S. intelligence report
on Global Water Security stated that water scarcity will become a source
for failed states by 2023.[1]
Water scarcity is one of the major problems in the Area of
Responsibility (AOR) of U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM), especially in
the Middle East. Water availability in these countries is among the
lowest in the world. As most water in the region is used for
agricultural purposes,[2]
its scarcity not only affects human consumption and domestic use but
also brings the ensuing possibility of food scarcity and the potential
for internal or regional conflict that comes with it.

Food shortages are closely interrelated with water scarcity. Water
sources, like rivers and lakes, not only quench human thirst but also
irrigate soils to produce food at a scale that greatly impacts human
consumption and national economies. This article will explain how
dangerous water scarcity may become in the region, how it can affect the
countries involved, and how military leaders, especially in USCENTCOM,
may best prepare for such this kind of contingencies.

DEMAND AND SUPPLY

To better understand water scarcity, it will be discussed in terms of demand and supply.
There are trends throughout the region that evidence an increase in
water demand and a concurrent decrease in governments’ capability to
keep up.

Demand
The most important trend that affects the demand for water is Population Growth,
which directly increases the pressure over available resources and
production capabilities in a country. The world’s population grew to
seven billion people in October 2011. Concurrently, the population in
the Middle East has doubled in the last three decades[3]
and it keeps growing at a rate of approximately 6.8 million people per
year. This means that every day in the Middle East, the demand for water
(and food) supplies increases by almost 19,000.

Although the basic natural use of water is human consumption, the real
challenge lies in the availability of water for large scale irrigation
and food production to feed the people or to obtain revenue from
agricultural exports. Therefore, Population Growth in a country
not only increases demand for domestic water consumption but also for
large quantities of food (which requires considerable amounts of water).
In the region, only 12 percent of the water is used for domestic
consumption purposes, whereas 84 percent is used in Agriculture (See
Table 1).

Supply
Despite the growing demand for water, there is no evidence that supply
in the region is able to keep pace. On the contrary, evidence points to a
decrease in availability. Due to the growth of the population and
other geographic trends, including climate change and depletion of
aquifers, the availability of water for the people in the Middle East
has fallen more than one half in the last thirty years (from 3,645 cubic
meters of annual renewable fresh water per capita in 1970, to an
average of 1,640 cubic meters in 2001), and it keeps shrinking.[4]

Experts measure water availability in terms of annual renewable
freshwater per person. In quantifiable terms, a “water-scarce” country
is one with total renewable freshwater resources below 1,000 cubic
meters per person per year.[5]
According to this definition, eleven of the world’s fifteen
water-scarce countries are located in the USCENTCOM AOR (highlighted in
red in Table 1).

Why?
Besides the natural geographic inclination to water scarcity in the
region, there are three other major factors that have a direct impact on
the supply side: poor planning in the use of water for irrigation
purposes; inadequate agriculture strategies that rely on massive
production of water-intensive crops; and the large-scale reduction in
the export of harvested food crops in some countries out of the region,
either for domestic biofuel production or simply to balance their own
economy.

First, many countries extract massive amounts of water for irrigation purposes by overpumping underground water (pumping beyond capability to recharge)
and by diverting water from rivers and lakes. Although it has economic
benefits in the agricultural sector, this practice decreases the
availability of water at a dangerous rate in a region that annually
experiences increasingly severe droughts.

Another example of poor water management is the shrinking of the Aral
Sea. Irrigation projects along its main tributaries - the Amu Darya and
Syr Darya Rivers - since the 1960s have shrunk the Aral Sea to less than
30 percent its original size, and it has lost its title as the world’s
fourth largest lake;[6] it is now the world’s 31st largest lake.

Second, agriculture, in some countries in the region,
relies too much on water-intensive crops that consume vast amounts of
water at a rate higher than geographic and environmental conditions are
able to support.

An example of poorly planned, water-intensive agriculture is found in
Yemen. Strategic economic changes led the country to greatly expand its
cultivated and irrigated land, thereby increasing demand for water for
agricultural purposes. In order to boost agriculture output and to meet
social demands, Yemen switched from traditionally grown
drought-resistant crops in the 1970s to more water-intensive crops such
as citrus and banana. This was followed by a dramatic increase in the
cultivation of Khat (or Qat), another water-intensive plant with a leaf
that is chewed as a stimulant in Yemeni culture. Another unmanageable
factor was Yemen’s population surge. The Yemeni population has more
than doubled since 1975, and it has grown approximately 35 percent since
1994, and continues growing,[7]
even though Yemen is the third driest country in the Middle East (Table
1), and the availability of water is very unlikely to increase.

Water activist, Lakis Polycarpou, suggests that
measures at the national level changed Yemen’s agriculture to the point
of unsustainability. Rising food prices and water scarcity were
important factors in the social uprisings in this Middle Eastern country
in the late 1990s and at the beginning of the last decade.

Despite the ousting of the Yemeni president and reforms in the
Government, water scarcity and high food prices are most likely to
remain a source of continued political unrest and possible armed
struggle in the future.

Third, major shifts in food crop exports have a
disrupting effect on the global food market. On one side, many food-crop
exporting countries outside the USCENTCOM AOR are shifting their
agriculture production to alternative fuel. This shifts massive amounts
of water to produce fuel-crops, thereby reducing production and export
of food crops. This large-scale shift reduces the available water for
food production and increases food prices in the world market. On the
other side, some countries have made major shifts in their strategic
planning in order to balance their own water supply deficits, causing a
similar effect.

This change caused a decline in India’s rice export by 4.8 million tons
to the international market in 2008 and solved its dependence on
exports, but it simultaneously caused a rise in food prices that
directly affected Middle Eastern buyers.

HOW DANGEROUS?

Water scarcity alone may not be a threat to national and regional peace
and security, but if combined with other factors, it may become one of
the main causes for state failure or even interstate war. These
conditions may include poverty, social tensions, environmental
degradation, ineffectual leadership, and weak political institutions.[8]

Water, like all natural resources, has three major characteristics.
First, it is embedded in a transnational, social, and economic space,
and it may generate conflicts among peoples and within and among
countries. Second, it is subject to increasing scarcity, and its
consumption and use may be complicated by unequal distribution or
environmental problems creating unrest within a country’s boundaries
and/or with its neighbors. Third, water is often used symbolically to
promote national identity or for ideological, social, and political
purposes.[9]

History is full of examples in which water has been used as a symbol to
boost national identity, and it has been politicized to rally popular
support, many times for rather unrelated causes. Ironically, history
also shows examples in which water conflicts have produced water-sharing
agreements.[10]

A natural consequence of a country building a dam upstream a river is
the shortage of water for the downstream countries when it is used for
irrigation before it reaches the outlet. Climate change, global warming,
and poor water management are trends that make water increasingly
scarce.

AREAS OF WATER CONFLICT

There are five major transnational river basins in the USCENTCOM AOR
that have a disputed history:the Jordan River Basin, the
Tigris-Euphrates Basin, the Amu Darya-Syr Darya Basin, the Indus River
Basin, and the Nile River Basin. Most of these conflicts have not been
resolved and remain sources of instability in the region.

Existing bilateral and multilateral agreements among riparian nations –
countries sharing the river basin – help prevent disputes from turning
into armed struggle, but conflicts still remain and governments must
monitor and apply the appropriate diplomatic treatment to maintain peace
in the region.

Jordan River Basin. Since the 1950s, the Jordan River
Basin has been a source of conflict among Israel, the West Bank,
Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. The main issue has been the extraction of
water for irrigation purposes and the effect that it has on the
downstream riparian nations. Israel uses the greatest amount of water
available in the Basin, followed by Jordan and Syria. The
Israeli-occupied West Bank uses the smallest amount. Disagreements among
riparian parties are still the primary source of tensions. Escalating
tensions in the 1960s between Israel and its neighbors over the
exploitation of the Jordan River Basin contributed to the 1967 Six-Day
War. In 1964, Israel bombed the headwaters of the Dan River on the
Jordan River, at Tell el-Qadi, in a dispute with Syria about sovereignty
over the source of the Dan. Later in 1965 and 1966, both countries
exchanged fire over a Syrian plan to divert the Jordan River headwaters
(Hasbani and Banias rivers) and presumably preempt Israel’s National
Water Carrier, an Israeli project aimed at integrating all major water
projects into a national grid. Syria halted construction of its
diversion in July 1966. Finally, in 1967, Israel destroyed the Arab
diversion works during the Six-day War; it occupied the West Bank and
the Golan Heights.[11]

In this case, the water dispute was only a contributing factor and it
combined with political, religious, economic and territorial disputes.
Nonetheless, the patterns of water use have not changed significantly
and there is still no formal agreement that addresses the issue to the
full satisfaction of all parties. The water conflict in the Jordan River
Basin continues to be a source of political instability in the region
and demands attention from the international community and regional
actors in order to prevent it from escalating to more dangerous levels.

Controversy sparked over the consequences for downstream Syria and
Iraq. Turkey proposes a solution with a needs-based approach that
calculates the amount of water to be needed by each country, to assign
the appropriate proportional quotas. Syria and Iraq, in turn, propose a
mathematical formula that will calculate demand versus supply, in order
to reach a further agreement over the remaining surplus (in the case
that supply exceeds demand) in an equitable matter. However, external
factors have complicated the prospects of a multilateral agreement.
Turkey’s closing relations with Israel has prompted improved relations
between Syria and Iraq to assume a united front.

Amu Darya/Syr Darya River Basin. Water provided by
these two rivers is a vital factor for the economies in Central Asia and
a possible source of conflict. These two rivers flow from Kyrgyzstan
and Uzbekistan into the Aral Sea, feeding the national economies of
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. In the
1960s, the Soviet Union’s central government managed water from these
rivers. In the summer, upstream republics Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan
released water from their lakes to downstream republics of Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan for irrigation and hydroelectric power
generation. In return, during the winter – when it was not practical to
release water –the downstream republics provided those upstream with gas
and coal to generate electricity. After the collapse of the Soviet
Union, national interests took hold as administrational boundaries
became national boundaries in 1991. After several disputes over the
previous arrangements, the five countries signed the Almaty Agreement in
1992, which basically kept the water quotas of the Soviet era in place.
The issue appeared to be settled, but riparian Afghanistan, which was
largely ignored by Soviet interests and left out of the Almaty
Agreement, has now emerged.[12]

Water use still remains a source of contention in this region, and it
raises concerns among the riparian countries over losing the water
resources to meet the demands of their agricultural sectors and growing
populations.

Indus River Basin. Water management in the Indus River
Basin has been the source of conflict between India and Pakistan.
Extending for about 1,800 miles, the river flows through China (2
percent), India (5 percent) and Pakistan (95 percent). The Indus and its
tributaries together are considered to make up one of the largest
irrigation canals in the world. The Basin provides water to millions of
people in northwestern India and Pakistan. Both countries have built
dams and canals to provide hydropower and irrigation. As a result, these
projects have dried up stretches of the river and caused displacements
of people, contributing to the destruction of the ecosystem in the Indus
plain. Pakistan and India signed the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) in 1960,
which is the main legal instrument that binds both countries’ water
management of the river, but controversy over the Baglihar Dam has
sparked disputes in which Pakistan claims that India is exceeding the
Treaty’s assigned quotas. Although the IWT has proven to serve as an
effective tool to resolve it, the issue is subject to politicization and
manipulation by both parties and remains a source of tension.

Nile River Basin. The Nile's waters have been a source
of conflict in East Africa and the Horn of Africa for many decades.
Riparian nations are Uganda, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, and
Egypt. Egypt and Sudan have traditionally been the primary users of Nile
water. Political instability and poverty in the other riparian
countries have made it difficult to develop and exploit its waters. In
February 1999, after years of conflict, the water ministries of the
Nile’s nine riparian countries officially launched the Nile Basin
Initiative in an attempt to “develop the river in a cooperative manner,
share substantial economic benefits, and to promote regional peace and
security.”

THE PROBLEM IN AFGHANISTAN

Besides the water-related issues in the major river basins, there is
the potential that U.S. efforts to bolster the economic development of
Afghanistan may be hampered by the country’s water scarcity. The U.S.
is assisting the Afghan Government to exploit the country’s vast mineral
and energy resources (identified by the U.S. Geological Service, among
other sources) as well as constructing a railroad and highway network to
increase regional trade opportunities and create jobs. However, mining
requires two important elements that are very scarce in this war-torn
country: energy and water.

As noted in Table 1, Afghanistan is already a water-scarce country with
a capacity to withdraw 779 cubic meters of renewable freshwater per
person, per year (well below the 1,000 m3 water scarcity threshold).
Despite years of work performed by the international community, only 46
percent of the Afghan population has access to an improved water source.[13]

Additionally, almost three decades of war have left a poorly maintained
and badly damaged power grid in Afghanistan. As of June 2011, only 36
percent of the population had access to electricity. Without sustained
international aid, the Afghan Government will be incapable of delivering
the electric generation required to support its mining projects.

A risk from mining is contamination of the existent water resources
with severe consequences for the population. Afghanistan’s economic
situation prevents it from undertaking construction of large power
producing plants and, as described above, a landlocked Afghanistan finds
it difficult to claim riparian rights to build dams along the Amu Darya
River.

Adding to the complexity of the water scarcity problem, the Afghan
Government has been unable to organize national efforts to ensure
successful water management. The Ministry of Energy and Water claims it
has jurisdiction over national hydropower projects; the Ministry of
Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock also claims such jurisdiction
when it comes to the use of the water; the Ministry of Mines claims such
jurisdiction by virtue of its cognizance over the country’s underground
water resources. To date, an appointed inter-agency commission has not
provided a successful policy for water management at a provincial or
national level.

Given the size of the mining reserves, and the New Silk Road Initiative (NSRI)[14]
planned to boost Afghanistan’s economy, water scarcity in this country
is an important issue to resolve if it is to succeed in developing
economically and integrating into the regional economy.

How can the problem of water scarcity be addressed?

Governments cope with each of their particular water scarcity
difficulties in different ways. In the near–term, governments have
several options to deal with their challenges of increasing supply, but
they have few options for reducing the demand for water.

First, the use of technology has helped introduce
desalination, sequential recycling, and other water conservation
techniques. Desalinated sea water is one of the major sources for
potable water in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)[15]
countries. Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates are the
top producers of desalinated water among them. Although the process is
normally expensive, production keeps growing steadily, and it has become
an important part of these water-scarce countries’ water resource
strategies. Sequential recycling is based on a simple logical recycling
of water resources in the following priority: human consumption,
industrial use, and agriculture use. Water used in households is
reclaimed to be reused for other purposes (e.g., irrigation or
industrial cooling processes). Conservation and optimization techniques
(e.g., drip irrigation) have proven to reduce water use between 30 to 70
percent while increasing crop yields 20 to 90 percent, compared with
traditional irrigation. The inclusion of fertilizers in drip irrigation
water is also a technique used for the distribution of chemicals in a
more economical way.[16]
It is important to note that the GCC are rich countries that can afford
the technology necessary to be successful in this area. Other countries
like Yemen have serious difficulties trying to envision projects that
require large investments in technology.

Second, water management consciousness has evolved
into strategic attitude changes in some countries. An example of this is
the reduction of cultivation of water-intensive crops and the
compensating increased importation of these selected crops that are no
longer produced.

A key concept to remember is virtual water,
which hydrological experts define as “the amount of water used to
produce a good or service.” For example, it takes an average of 1,300
cubic meters of water to produce one metric ton of wheat.[17]

Another important concept is virtual water trade, which refers to the idea that exchanging goods and services is the same as exchanging the equivalent “virtual water”
associated with them. Under this concept, water-scarce countries may
purchase food crops equivalent to significant amounts of virtual water,
or exchange these crops for products they can produce without
restrictions. For example, purchasing - instead of producing - 1,000
metric tons of wheat would spare a country approximately 1.3 million m3
of water, which can then be used to quench other consumption needs.

However, this approach requires bilateral and multilateral cooperation,
the legal framework to support it, as well as sufficient funds to
import food crops equivalent to significant amounts of virtual water.
With appropriate and timely government intervention, the agricultural
sectors of water-rich countries may sell their surplus crops and food
products to buyers, who, in turn, make payment in kind via exchange of
their own goods with selling countries. For example, many countries in
the USCENTCOM AOR import between 50 -90 percent of their food
requirements.[18]

In theory, globalization and world trade make it easier for
water-scarce countries to cope with their lack of readily available
water supplies. Bilateral and multilateral free trade and cooperation
agreements may be viable options for water-scarce countries to ensure
that their populace has uninterrupted access to adequate water supplies.

Third, the creation of national or regional food and
water strategic reserves with the capacity to respond to winter or
disaster needs has also proven itself to be an important national
capability. Developing such a strategic water reserve requires countries
to make significant investments in physical and transportation
infrastructure, as well as to conclude appropriate agreements with other
countries to maintain a balanced flow of food imports. Furthermore,
developing regional-level reserves would require even higher degrees of
investment and cooperation in order to be effective.

What can military leaders do?
There is considerable literature explaining what governments can do to
ameliorate their water scarcity problems, but implementing solutions
requires leadership at the national, regional, and global levels and the
appropriate diplomacy to actively engage and prevent conflicts from
becoming either internal or interstate conflicts. U.S. Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton recently announced the launching of the United States Water Partnership (USWP),
a U.S.-based program that seeks to mobilize public and private assets
to address water issues around the globe, especially in the developing
world. The aim of USWP is to engage water-stressed areas in the world to
solve water challenges by sharing expertise, promoting and sharing
technology, and fostering water management capacity. Although not a
formal member, the Department of Defense (DoD) participates in USWP
through work performed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

At a military strategy level, a DoD whitepaper explains the importance
of this issue to the U.S. and how it relates to its National Security
Strategy and National Military Strategy. In “DoD/COCOM Water Security Program Strategy,”[19]
Erik Fleischner argues that Water Security be incorporated into DoD
strategy and combatant command (COCOMs) Theater Security programs. His
recommendations include the identification of the water security scope,
possible helpful stakeholders, potential partners and programs, possible
gaps and ways to prioritize them, and potential actions to close the
gaps and funding sources. He also suggests ways to develop processes to
implement programs and performance metrics, and portrays ideas on how to
begin execution and continue coordination within DoD and with U.S.
partners. The white paper explains how COCOMs can and should use their
own assets as well as combine them with the assets of partners to
develop an effective water security strategy in their specific AOR.

These recommendations could be implemented via increased support to
USWP. By committing departmental and military assets to support USWP
efforts in affected countries in each AOR, DoD would assist the U.S. to
better achieve its national interests on a regional and global scale.

CONCLUSIONS

Water scarcity disputes and tensions, if left unaddressed or
unsuccessfully resolved, may lead to increased levels of violence and
armed conflict that undermine intrastate, interstate, regional, and
international peace and security.

The successful management of water scarcity is a leadership problem of
strategic import and, as such, demands that civilian and military senior
leaders include water management as a key component of a country’s
national security and military strategies. This explicit recognition of
the importance of water scarcity should be followed by the adoption of
appropriate policies, plans, and programs enabling a country to
responsibly manage its own water resources as well as its relations
regarding water scarcity issues with other countries.

When not appropriately managed by national leaders, water shortages
can be expected to result in increased food and water prices, diminished
access to affordable food and water by indigenous populations, and
increased anti-government sentiments. These events may trigger
political and social unrest and increase economic imbalances that
escalate into armed conflict at the local, regional, national, regional,
and global levels.

It is not axiomatic that water shortages and resulting high food
prices, in and of themselves, may be the cause of intrastate and/or
interstate armed conflict but rather whether, and how competently,
governments manage their water scarcity challenges. In fact,
governments have demonstrated that their interventions in domestic water
production and consumption patterns, along with diplomatic moves to
generate economic alliances that ensure access to water and food for the
people, may diffuse underlying tensions that otherwise would lead to
violence and in many instances armed conflict.

It is unfortunate that some governments may attempt to use a water
scarcity crisis for their parochial political purposes. Leaders of such
governments may view such a crisis as an opportunity to lay blame on
the political opposition. Political opposition leaders themselves may
attempt to exploit such a crisis to underscore their long-standing
political, economic, and social grievances to exacerbate unrest and
provoke anti-government protests, rebellions, and other anti-government
behavior.

Although future conflicts triggered by unaddressed or unresolved water
scarcity issues are not necessarily imminent, it is important to monitor
all aspects and possible sources of such potential conflicts in order
to be able to timely intervene to prevent escalation to large-scale
intrastate and/or interstate armed conflict.

Finally, as previously discussed, water management is a critical issue
for the Afghanistan government and its allies and partners to “get
right” in the country’s reconstruction efforts. None of the major
reconstruction and development programs being undertaken in Afghanistan
will enable it to become economically viable without ensuring the
national government is able to manage the water-related issues in the
major river basins and the country’s water scarcity.

RECOMMENDATIONS

USCENTCOM and other U.S. regional COCOMs, especially U.S. Africa
Command, should address water scarcity and its effects on national,
regional, and global peace and security in their deliberate and
contingency planning processes. It is recommended that these regional
COCOMs leverage available civil government, non-profit, and private
sector experts; enhance mil-to-mil relations with counterpart defense
establishments; and make greater use of the interagency process to boost
a “whole of government approach” to solving water scarcity challenges
at the regional level.

The issue of water scarcity can be highly technical and complex and, as
such, it should be addressed by leading experts in the relevant
scientific, engineering, economic, agricultural, and political
disciplines to provide COCOM senior leaders with actionable
recommendations on how to prevent and/or mitigate crisis arising from
water scarcity. COCOMs may wish to consider creating specialized cells
within their headquarters organizations to perform continuous monitoring
of water scarcities and evaluate the first, second, and tertiary order
effects. The goal is for COCOM commanders to provide continuous
situational awareness enabling them to decide whether, and how best, to
intervene before a crisis develops due to unresolved water scarcity
challenges rather than only allow them to react to a resulting military
and humanitarian crisis.

With respect to its AOR, USCENTCOM should specifically monitor the five
main river basins as potential sources of water-related conflict in
order to analyze their impact on the region’s political and economic
stability. The analysis should conclude with traditional military
courses of action as well as recommended courses of action that can be
implemented by the U.S. interagency.

USCENTCOM should also seek to become an active participant in the USWP
to advance measures and programs that provide information and constitute
the basis for U.S. Government initiatives in its AOR.Finally, the U.S. should include water management as an important part
of its reconstruction strategy and economic development program in
Afghanistan. Additionally, the U.S. should leverage its interagency
capabilities to facilitate increased dialogue between the Afghan
Government and the governments of its neighbors to address riparian
rights; support the formation of a national authority that addresses the
matter with a holistic view; provide the technical support necessary to
implement water management strategies, and broker agreements between
its key allies and partners to bolster the water management capabilities
of the Afghan Government. The recently announced USWP appears to be a
relevant tool for the U.S. diplomatic and economic approach to implement
U.S. strategy in this matter.

[1]
U.S. Director of National Intelligence, U.S. Intelligence Community,
Intelligence Community Assessment: Global Water Security, ICA 2012-08, 2
February 2012, page 3.[2]
World Water Development Report 2 (WWDR 2), UNESCO 2006, 7 Place de
Fontenoy, 75007 Paris, France, figure 8.3: Water Use by Industry vs.
Domestic Use and Agriculture, page 279.[3]
Farzaneh Roudi-Fahimi, Liz Creel, and Roger-Mark De Souza; Finding the
Balance: Population and Water Scarcity in the Middle East and North
Africa, Population Reference Bureau, July 2002, Table 1, Population
Growth and Fresh Water in MENA, p. 4[4] Roudi-Fahimi, Creel, and De Souza, p. 4[5] Roudi-Fahimi, Creel, and De Souza, p. 2[6]
Victor Dukhovni, David Sokolov, Scientific Information Center of the
Interstate Commission for Water Coordination in Central Asia,
UNESCO/IHP/WWAP, p 33.[7] Roudi-Fahimi, Creel, and De Souza, p. 4[8] U.S. Director of National Intelligence, U.S. Intelligence Community, page 3.[9]
Dr. Rita Padawangi and Dr. Arpita Mathur, panelists of Session I:
Inter-state Water Conflicts-An Overview, Symposium on Inter-Ste Water
Conflicts in Southern Asia, Report, Singapore, South Asia Programme of
the RSIS Institute for Defence and Strategic Studies and RSIS Centre for
Non-Traditional Security (NTS) Studies, February 2011.[10] U.S. Director of National Intelligence, U.S. Intelligence Community, page 3.[11]
Dr. Peter H. Gleick, Water Conflict Chronology, Pacific Institute for
Studies in Development, Environment, and Security, November 2008, p. 12[12]
Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, “Avoiding Water
Wars: Water Scarcity and Central Asia’s Growing Importance for Stability
in Afghanistan and Pakistan”, A majority Staff Report presented to
Congress’ 112th Session, Washington DC, February 2011.[13]
WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation,
Estimates for the Use of Improved Drinking-Water Sources, Afghanistan,
Updated March 2012, p. 1.[14]
The U.S. Department of State has described the Obama Administration
vision for the NSRI as integrating the Afghan economy into the regional
economy via “hardware” (e.g., building pipelines and power grids) and
“software” (e.g., reducing regional customs barriers) approaches.
Joshua Kucera, “The New Silk Road?”, The Diplomat (11 November 2011).[15]
Created in May, 1981, the GCC is a political and economic union
organization that includes the Arab States bordering the Persian Gulf
and located on or near the Arabian Peninsula, namely Bahrain, Kuwait,
Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates.[16] Roudi-Fahimi, Creel, and De Souza, p. 6[17] A. Y. Hoekstra · A.
K. Chapagain, Water footprints of nations: Water Use by People as a
Function of their Consumption Pattern, Water Resource Manage (2007)
21:35–48, p. 36-39.[18] Qatar National Food Security Programme (QNFSP), The Global Food Crisis: Middle Eastern Dimensions, 2011.[19]
Erik Fleischner, U.S. European Command Liaison Officer to HQ U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, DOD/COCOM Water Security Program Strategy, White
Paper HQUSEUCOM, April 2010.

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A Born-Again Christian Conservative and Fundamentalist. A Republican with a very pro-defense, pro-US Cold War view of politics and the world. I also have, as a non-Jew, a Pro-Israel political and religious position as a born-again Christian Conservative.